An Insight on Interventions: Perspectives from Pokemon TCG Judging

Spoiler alert: Sometimes, you don’t have all of the answers.

I left behind a chapter of life behind as a competitive player in the Pokemon Trading Card Game behind after the 2018 World Championships. It sounds a little silly and a twinge melodramatic written that way, and I thought a lot about that wording, but after that think, it’s nothing less than accurate. If you do something long enough for enough reasons, it matters to you. I’ve written, uh, a lot about that, and I’m not here to rehash it. But, through a lot of years, I played a card game in a lot of places, did so under a lot of rules, and got to know a whole lot of people. Some sort of playing perspective, or something.

While I left that chapter behind, for most of those that will read this, it’s been evident that I didn’t close that part of the book just yet. I’m often asked why I jumped to judging events after that 2018 season, and the answers I’ve specked across time have painted parts of that picture: disclaimers about time investment, alliterations to things that drive me, flirtations with frustrations, and myriad metaphors in-between. Regardless of my impetus, as best I can perceive, a clear reason that I was as readily accepted in that transition as I was came from the “player perspective” I had room to offer.

A confession: I don't know that the player perspective is all it's cracked up to be.  I also can't know what I don't know, so perhaps it truly lead to a more intuitive understanding of what judging was trying to achieve.

Either way, it was lovely cover for someone who was definitely not unafraid of being perceived a spy. I’ve been blessed with a lot of opportunities to see a lot of things and situations even as I start writing this. Trust me: there is no bound to the level of insanity that a Pokemon tournament can cook up.

Something I’ve long been aware of, player or not, is the lack of understanding and trust that exists between judges and many players. In a way, this is a natural result of a design where the former’s goal is perceived as punitive with respect to the latter—many players see judges as penalty robots, and perhaps poor ones, at that. It’s nevertheless unfortunate, though, as the vast majority of judge/player interactions are about creating the best event experience for a room full of people on a given weekend. When those interactions are prejudged to be in bad faith, things are a whole lot less fun for all.

I bring this—perhaps an ironic manifestation of my dreaded double agent perception—in hopes that one may see the other better. I’ve lived the judging side now, and this is me noting scenarios that stuck out to me over time, things I wish more people knew, and general purpose advice on competing at one of these events. There a few crucial caveats to start:

• By nature of what I’ve done, any “situation” I refer to is not only anonymized, but to the best of my recollection and efforts, never happened as I tell it here. If you think you see a real event in an anecdote here, it’s not because I meant it. (This is in sharp contrast to everything else on this corner of the internet of mine, where the alliteration is half the fun.)
• This entire thing is, by nature, my frozen-in-time opinion. This means two things: (1) it’s not anyone else’s opinion, and it certainly isn’t remotely binding on them (2) it might not be my opinion in a week either. This is published now, deliberately, because I haven’t been involved in any recent major events and won’t be back on the Regional floor for another month. This isn’t event commentary. There’s an argument that doing this at all is a bad idea. I would like to not be proven wrong in my hope that this can be understood in the space in which it is intended (for example, invoking “Christopher said I could avoid x by doing y!” is going to get you an eye roll and me a displeased message from a colleague).
• The majority of this is meant to mostly enlighten players to the perspectives judges might be facing in various situations, and actual applicable advice is mostly found at the bottom. My hope is that the thought processes are useful.

Because I’m writing it here, you can count on a lovely combination of actual advice, musings on nothingness, and everything in between. Advance apologies if that’s a bit too much fluffing around for you.

My Brand of “Player Perspective”

Briefly, while I don’t personally value as the lens as much as it was valued on my part, I want to outline the perspective from which I’m coming here. The first thing you need to know is that I never really valued winning for the intrinsic value of winning—that is, cutthroat competitiveness has never been me. My perspective on judges as a player was formed by the knowledge that almost all were doing the best they could to bring the best experience to players—the motivation was in the right place, if absolutely nothing else. Sometimes, that motivation could be misdirected into inventing arbitrary rules, a bit too much overconfidence, or hesitance to act on certain situations. I really, really struggle with arbitrary rules—my one support ticket about judging as a player was 100% about some overzealous reading—but other than that, it was never hard for me to appreciate the effort for what it was rather than being caught up in the occasional misadventures the efforts produced. (Some of you are reading in horror. Oops.)

So, foremost, my shifting perspective has been driven by an idea that the goal should be to improve things for the benefit of as many of an event’s participants as possible. That theme may or may not come up.

The Space Between the Grey

Starting on a light subject: The difference between the easy and the hard parts of judging are simple: if you break a game state, usually there’s a prescribed manner for us to fix it and a general range of penalty that the folks in charge have given us. Drawn an 8th card off that Professor Juniper? That’ll be a reveal, a shuffle, and a Double Prize Card penalty at your Regional. Anyone who’s done more than one event at a Regional level can tell you that offhand, and most in their first event can probably manage it too. Draw that 8th card and then do 3 other things? Usually the rewind process is fairly linear, and whether or not it’s possible (and whether or not the penalty should be a bit higher) is generally not that hard to figure out.

Draw that 8th card again? Now we’re in a fun place—welcome to the world of “judge”ment.

The rules are no longer so black and white—is the penalty escalated now? There’s a whole litany of factors that can come into play—experience, age, whatnot—and since this isn’t a treatise on judging technique, I’ll leave it out. But, with the same example plus some context, I hope it’s obvious where the line can start to get blurry.

An example so far on the other end of the spectrum entirely that it almost comes full circle: a player shouts insults at his opponent and storms away from the table. Did this cause “great emotional distress” (a standard employed by the current Penalty Guidelines for a certain level of enforcement) to those around them? That’s entirely a subjective measure, but it’s not a particularly difficult one either.

Things get scarier in the middle. Unsurprisingly, this is where the thorniest issues reside. Are these sleeves marked? (Yes?—Is the pattern significant?) Is her shuffling sufficiently random? Is he playing too slowly? Is this deck list being different from the deck significant in advantage? Is the player playing slowly with intent to run out the clock? All of these issues require judgement on the part of a judge, and not simple enforcement of the rules. A rules robot would be cool, but it would not be able to cope with anything more than the simplest of situations. The most crucial element of a tournament’s judge team, in my opinion, is people at the top with the pertinent experience and understanding to set the tone on these sorts of things properly.

The particularly awkward part about these? Almost every judgement call has the undertones of “you did something wrong” and every penalty can be interpreted as a punitive action. That’s uncomfortable for everyone, and there’s gobs of social research that talk about why. A warning for nicked sleeves might not sound like much, but I know as a player, on the one occasion I can remember it happening, my first reaction was defensive. Sometimes players don’t like the penalty they get for a game play error, but at least for the judge, there is no doubt when rooted appropriately in the rules we’re given. Judges have various ranges of self confidence on this array of judgement issues, too, but I believe most judges I know would rather give a clearly correctly penalty for a game play error and have the player upset than give a subjective penalty and see the upset result from that. It’s only human.

Perhaps you’re not buying sleeves as an inflection point for conflict. Let’s introduce another type of judgement call: Player A says that Player B has already attached an energy card this turn—something you can only do once, of course. Player B is insistent that energy has been here for awhile. Each judge that’s been at this long enough to see a few of these scenarios has a checklist he or she will run down to suss out as much pertinent information as possible. Grab a partner, cross the stories, see if either player makes more sense—it’s quite a “fun” time.

The best resolutions to these scenarios are the odd ones where one player finally hits the eureka moment—”Oh! You’re totally right!”—and the judge gets to walk away with a mild time extension the only scar from the situation. Unfortunately, a bit more often, someone has a to make a choice about who to believe at the end of the day, and here’s an open secret for you: I am not a mind reader and I do not always get it right (I’m pretty sure most of my colleagues would get onboard that statement too, but I’m trying not to speak for anyone here!). A decision always has to be made, though, and often that means someone can’t be right. I don’t like thinking about that fact, as I’m very much the type of person concerned with “rightness” of things. Some of my least-favorite memories are of being part of making decisions at tables featuring two players that I believed were both arguing in good-faith honesty, yet were in diametric opposition. Sometimes, the wrong story wins.

Part of the nuance of judging is finding a way to make these interactions with judgement calls less about wrongdoing and punitive action and more about the ultimate goal of creating the best experience for all attendees on a given weekend. Permitting slow play is harmful to your opponent, and the rest of the players in the room. Turning a blind eye to cheating is a disservice to everyone else. “Customer service” is about more than a single person.

The Ticking of Time

I have another deep secret to tell you: Pokemon TCG tournaments take awhile. In the interest of never returning to the days of midnight dismissals, a lot of advancements have been made, and—knock on wood—the days of TOM troubles are behind many of the world’s largest events. Logistics are a personal interest, and if I’ve ever hovered over your table at the end of a round to snatch an all-important, freshly-signed match slip from you, you’ve been a part of my experience in that frontier. At this point in time, events still often take too long, but the tournament operations side of the house has trimmed pretty much all of the excess it can manage—exceptions persist, but for the most part, things run pretty well.

That leaves festivities on the floor as the focus of time management. End of round management is something that many staff teams work hard on because the tournament cannot move without the last slip. This, in general, is something people have gotten fairly good at as well. That leaves a last frontier of lost time on the judging floor: time extensions.

For years, players were afraid to call judges because they were afraid the resolution would not be worth the time invested. In an era when match time extensions were not referenced one-for-one with the time it took for judges to be involved and penalties didn’t quite have the same teeth as today, it was expeditious to just nod along as your opponent showed you the card they’d just drawn accidentally and accept the knowledge as sufficient mea culpa. This is, fortunately, something where large strides have been made, with one-for-one extensions now the cultural norm at most high level events. With that, though, comes the pressure for judges to make sure their interactions are fast.

Small time extensions in numerous number won't delay a round—someone's +3 "overtime" turns will take awhile—but a smattering of medium extensions can cause problems, and most involved with the game know the feeling of the entire room waiting as one table plays out the final minutes of its marathon extension.  

Nobody wants to be the judge that wrote that marathon extension, and judges do operate under the knowledge that “fast” is as much a member of the “fun, fast, and fair” motto that makes occasional appearance as its siblings. With this comes the need for judges to carefully weigh different points in their conversation with players. Let’s take the “he already attached his energy card this turn” dispute from above again. As a judge approaching that table, the first task is to get a sense of whether this is something that can be personally addressed or whether a superior’s permissions and insights might be needed to navigate the call. Ideally, complicated scenarios are run up the flagpole expediently both so that experienced figures can guide the conversation in the required ways, but also so that the possibility of a complex situation is known to those at the highest levels of staff.

From there, it’s about using time to gain as much useful knowledge as possible. Once again, this isn’t a judging methods piece, so I’ll pass on elaboration, but this can be all sorts of questioning approaches. An invaluable skill in any judge is recognizing the point where the conversation is no longer going to generate useful information—that’s when it’s time to make a call and offer the appeal to the Head Judge.

It took me awhile to be comfortable with this, but I’m here now: While, theoretically, a judge might be able to unpack every situation accurately with infinite time, the reality is that infinite time is not a luxury afforded to judges, and behaving as though it is constitutes a disservice to the other hundreds of players in the room. That doesn’t mean there isn’t room for taking time to make decisions: contrarily, knowing when to take more time to reach a decision is among the most important steps a judge in a leadership position can have to make. I am immensely proud of a particular double digit time extension issued at a Regional last year because I believe every minute was used appropriately and in the end the right answer was reached. I would defend that particular issue to that TO any day. The key here, though, is that there’s a point where the conversation has to stop and a decision has to be made—and, the judge on the call can only do their best when making that call.

A word on the Head Judge: there are a few things I want to address here. Foremost, never hesitate to make an appeal to the Head Judge, even if you’ve seen your floor judge conversing with someone in a red-striped Head Judge shirt. You never know what new information might be worth coming to light, who the Appeal point is for the event, or whatnot. Any floor judge that’s offended by an appeal is someone you should not feel bad for offending. That aside, when the appeal is made, realize that the Head Judge is bound by the constraints of time as I’ve been laying them out. Their goal at the table is to get the facts of the situation and render a decision in a manner that is both fair and expeditious. That may take time. The key scenario comes after the Head Judges issues their ruling and a player still feels their point hasn’t been heard. I don’t know anyone given a Head Judge role in recent time that won’t happily discuss a ruling after a match, but once a ruling is made—and final—the Head Judge is now in an immensely awkward position of doing her best to work with you while also needing the match to continue in deference to the other hundreds of people in the room. I know it’s hard not to feel disregarded, but I ask that you consider not viewing a Head Judge putting a stop to conversation after a ruling as dismissive, but instead as “we can talk later.”

A final HJ bit: as a floor judge, once you have all of the facts and realize that a ruling is going in a direction that a player is obviously in disagreement with (or worse, a situation where one player will certainly disagree, and the decision only decides which one it will be) the best choice among a poor lot is often to render that ruling and move onto the appeal. There is minimal value in a conversation that has no binding when it’s eating time. This is a fine line to balance between getting information and rehashing perspective. But, particularly at the end of a round, this can become an important consideration.

Preparation Pointers

As promised, I have a few pieces of advice to offer. Most of these things are admittedly rehashed advice I gave as a player too, but these all stick out as pertinent from judging too.

• Your sleeves should look the same. We’re all aware that certain brands can have manufacturing…difficulties. As a player, I probably consumed more sets of sleeves than I did play in events, but the reality is that risking serious issues is not worth it when the cost of sleeves is compared to the cost of an event itself. One of the official documents recommends not sleeving a deck in order as a way to avoid marked patterns, and I agree with that. Once you have sleeved an entire deck, get some good lighting and look at it from all five angles. Do any cards or sleeves stick out? Do your best to replace them. Do all of your Supporters have extra plastic stuff on the sides from a worse cutting job than the rest of the deck? Please fix that. The best way to avoid being falsely charged with a cheating issue with your sleeves is to take active prevention measures and regularly examine them for patterns that might’ve emerged over the day. A key tip: I know it’s tempting to sleeve all of your cards in one style and mix-and-match to build decks, but in most cases, production variances from box to box make this a risky strategy.
• Be clear and concise, and answer questions as they are posed. When dealing with a judge, be cognizant of the reality that you’re both working toward the game goal: getting the right answer to whatever problem is facing you. To the best of your ability, be clear in explaining the issue you’re facing and if asked by a judge to do something like allow your opponent to talk uninterrupted, do your best to comply. Both sides of the table tend to have a story, and it’s the places where they don’t match that can be most useful. Give the other members of the conversation the respect that goes with allowing that story to be told.
• Mark your match slips between games. On the matter of events that don’t have ample pens, I am sorry, but whenever they are available, take the few seconds to make a record of what’s going on. You don’t have to initial the lines next to the checkbox—if you really want to, feel free, but they’re actually for judges to note penalties—but taking the moment to mark can help save headaches later, help a passing judge better understand what’s going on at the table, and aid if the winner circle later is less-than-clear.

Final Words

The reality that the right decision isn’t always made sticks with me in an uncomfortable way, and the scenarios that eat at me the most are the ones where the right answer escaped certain determination. There are times when the wrong answers find their way out on black-and-white things, too, and I am recently guilty—this is not an acceptable thing to happen, and every event feels like a step forward in making those occurrences less-and-less—but where those are upsetting and embarrassing, the grey areas are truly where my discomfort lives on.

If I’m totally honest, it’s deeply challenging to wrestle with it sometimes. Particularly in my case, the reality that I might have been a part of something “wrong” that causes distress, at any point, is not an easy thing to swallow. Friends could tell you that some weekends have proven heavy-hitting in that respect. I don’t think that’s a particularly important secret to keep. At the same time, I’ve not found many more fulfilling things than being behind-the-scenes of making something work for the benefit of people, and there’s no doubt that this is a giant fulfillment in that respect.

I’m often still asked why I’m doing this. The answer jumps around, and recently, the answer is a bit more tinged with future conditionals. There are few things I enjoy My goal, though, for as long as I am here is to be a part of making every event as great an experience as it can be for all—through whatever mode and medium that takes. And that’s all I can do.

Hopefully you’ve found something interesting among that effort today.